Steljes celebrates 21st birthday milestone

15th May 2008: Steljes, the specialist technology provider, reaches a significant milestone this year as the company celebrates 21 years of trading.

“Our 21st Anniversary is an exciting time for Steljes Ltd and for me.” said Nigel Steljes, founder and Chairman of Steljes Ltd. “It’s been an amazing journey, and a lot of hard work. Throughout the company’s history we have been prepared to take risks and launch innovative technologies for which we have had to create the market, and that’s something I’m very proud of,”

In 1985, Nigel Steljes was shown the technical specification of the world’s first LCD panel, a prototype product from ASK in Norway. After immediately seeing the commercial benefits, he pedalled his wares on a 3’x 2’ stand at an AV exhibition with great success. After taking a £12,000 order from IBM, Steljes Limited was born and LCD screens were introduced to the UK market.

Always on the look-out for new technologies, Nigel soon created and maintained a strong relationship with a second exclusive partner - InFocus - becoming the only UK company to distribute its star product; the world’s first 8-colour LCD panel. Steljes built a leading market position nine months before similar products were offered by other vendors.

Martin Large, now Group Chief Executive, joined the company in the mid-90s: “Steljes was receiving accolade after accolade, taking a place in the top 10 of Virgin Atlantic’s Fast Track 100 two years running. It was at this time that we signed our third exclusive agreement, this time with Fujitsu and launched the Fujitsu 42” plasma screen - the first 42” plasma screen available.” Soon, Steljes had placed plasma screens in every shop window of Harrods, the prestigious Knightsbridge store, and built a leading position in another emerging market.

In 1998, Steljes became a distributor for SMART Technologies in a partnership that is still going strong ten years later. Today, Steljes is the UK's number one supplier of interactive whiteboards to the education market with 59.4% share (as of Q1 2008). Its solutions support every level of educational need from individual teachers, to large scale procurement in Building Schools for the Future projects; through Early Years and Higher Education. Again, Steljes has lead the market, working with schools, colleges, government strategists and teachers to provide advice and resource materials to ensure the technology delivers real value in the classroom and improves learning outcomes. The team was delighted by the recent Somekh research report from Manchester Metropolitan University which provided the first conclusive proof of the benefits of interactive whiteboards.

Building on past success Steljes continues to develop, with exclusive partnerships recently announced with Turning Technologies and AVerMedia, as well as development of solutions for corporate, healthcare and public sector markets as well as more niche markets such as military and emergency services. It actively sources technologies that meet the specific needs of these markets and works with channel partners to deliver technology with purpose.

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About Steljes

Steljes Limited is a technology pioneering organisation that sources products from around the world, working with manufacturers to customise and bring their solutions to the UK market through its specialised channel network. The company’s innovative solutions enable people to interact and communicate more effectively while working and learning.

The company has been sourcing products from around the world for over 20 years, introducing LCD panels, projectors, plasma displays and interactive whiteboards to the UK market. The company has consistently been the UK's number one supplier of interactive whiteboards and recently increased its UK market segment share from 54.7% in 2006 to 59.4% in Q1 2008 (source: DTC).

In 2007, Steljes set up its own innovations team to take products through the product development lifecycle and bring additional new technologies to market.